Many U.S. states have taken significant action on climate change in recent years, demonstrating their commitment despite federal policy gridlock and rollbacks. Yet, there is still much we do not know about the agents, discourses, and strategies of those seeking to delay or obstruct state-level climate action. We first ask, what are the obstacles to strong and effective climate policy within U.S. states? We review the political structures and interest groups that slow action, and we examine emerging tensions between climate justice and the technocratic and/or market-oriented approaches traditionally taken by many mainstream environmental groups. Second, what are potential solutions for overcoming these obstacles? We suggest strategies for overcoming opposition to climate action that may advance more effective and inclusive state policy, focusing on political strategies, media framing, collaboration, and leveraging the efforts of ambitious local governments.

The political mediation model explains movement policy outcomes ranging from complete failure to total success. However, the qualitative mechanisms through which political mediation occurs empirically remain understudied, especially as they relate to the content-specifying stages of the legislative process. Furthermore, while we know that political mediation is context dependent, key elements of what political context entails remain underspecified. This article addresses these gaps by tracing the influence of a coalition of social movement organizations (SMOs) seeking to simultaneously shape the content of two major climate bills in a progressive U.S. state where the climate movement enjoys a relatively favorable political context overall. Comparing the divergent trajectories and outcomes of the two bills illuminates the process of legislative buffering, which is conceptualized as an informal mechanism of political mediation. The comparative analysis also reveals situational elements of political context that can present additional hurdles movements must overcome to maximize their success.

At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However, California's landmark climate law drove a wedge between two segments of the state's environmental community. On one side was a coalition of "market-oriented" environmental social movement organizations (SMOs), who allied with private corporations to advance market-friendly climate policy. On the other side was a coalition of "justice-oriented" environmental SMOs, who viewed capitalist markets as the problem and sought climate policy that would mitigate the uneven distribution of environmental harms within the state. The social movement literature is not well equipped to understand this case, in which coalitional politics helped one environmental social movement succeed in its policy objectives at the expense of another. In this chapter, we draw on legislative and regulatory texts, archival material, and interviews with relevant political actors to compare the policymaking influence of each of these coalitions, and we argue that the composition of the two coalitions is the key to understanding why one was more successful than the other. At the same time, we point out the justice-oriented coalition's growing power, as market-oriented SMOs seek to preserve their legitimacy.

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